The European Commission has announced that that migrant and refugee arrivals in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea number 134,004 in as of December 5, 2018, down from 179,536 during the same period in 2017. The year that saw the highest number of arrivals, 1,015,078, was 2015. While Italy experienced the biggest drop, arrivals actually increased in Spain and Greece. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan have remained the largest countries of origin since 2014; since then, almost one million Syrians have sought asylum in the EU/Europe

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez, and Spain's Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian talk during the signing of commercial agreements between…